Gaining Service and Leadership Experience
Service experience refers to any volunteer activities you participate in that allow you to apply your disciplinary skills. You can seek these opportunities yourself, or a faculty member could appoint you to a role.
Gaining service experience is important for all graduate students, whether you aspire to a career inside or outside academia. Many faculty positions require experience in teaching, research, and service for tenure and promotion. For this reason, faculty hiring committees tend to look favorably on candidates who can demonstrate a strong service record.
Alternative-academic (alt-ac) jobs also value service activities because they show you take initiative. In evaluating your resume, prospective employers will look for examples of how you were able to pivot and apply your unique skill set to situations outside the classroom. They will want to know: Which committees did you serve on? How did that work help prepare you for a specific job in academe, government, or the private sector? What skills did you develop while performing your service duties?
As a graduate student, you can get involved in three different kinds of volunteer service: service to your department, service to the university, and service to your profession. Within your department, you might serve as a student representative on the graduate studies committee or on a hiring committee. Ask your advisor about other departmental opportunities to volunteer.
Service to the university could involve acting as a graduate student representative on a student advisory committee or serving on a scholarship committee. University-wide volunteer roles offer the added perk of helping you network with students and faculty from units all around WMU.
The final category, service to the profession, typically involves volunteering for a role in a professional association or society tied to your field. You could volunteer at an annual conference hosted by the association or join a committee or a working group within the organization. Visit the association’s website and search for links like “Get Involved.”
But before you begin, be aware that volunteer service has a vortex effect. You can get caught up and overcommitted before you realize it, and your teaching and studies can suffer as a result. Be selective about which roles you serve and how much time you devote to them.
Student organizations, both within your unit and university-wide, usually offer opportunities to serve as officers. Some groups hold events to advocate for better living or working conditions for students to improve educational opportunities for all. Others focus on social justice aims to help ensure marginalized students feel welcome at WMU. The Graduate Student Association also offers a variety of director positions geared toward improving and advancing graduate education at WMU. Advocating on behalf of students allows you to serve a leadership role and, in the process, expand your university network and build your CV.